


And Kneel and Say an Ave There for Me

by smokingbomber



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: F/M, Gen, Short, Tumblr Prompt, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:37:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingbomber/pseuds/smokingbomber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>17. things you said that i wish you hadn’t (for senshiofmom @ tumblr)</p>
<p>Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Setsuna wondered, here on the Nth go-round of a closed loop that promised infinity, if the mask was even something he could take off anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Kneel and Say an Ave There for Me

Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, Setsuna wondered, here on the Nth go-round of a closed loop that promised infinity, if the mask was even something he could take off anymore. 

Maybe it appeared when he woke up, or was something he put on, or perhaps it was something he slept in when he wasn’t paralyzed and astrally projecting his consciousness.

After all, his ghost wore it when he was a ghost.

Did he wear it in the shower? No, she couldn’t think about that, nor about whether he wore it when he and Serenity—

Where she was in the loop, Pluto hadn’t been Setsuna yet, but of course she remembered. She remembered whenever she was out here, which at this stretch, was all the time. So to get her mind off him, to calm her blush, she leaned against the ornate jamb with her key in the crook of her arm and delicately sipped her tea. She thought about Setsuna’s life.

Last time, she hadn’t really added enough details, and the girls had noticed. All of them. But that time, Haruka and Michiru had also been worse off; it’d been more difficult to connect with them, they were colder and more desperate, they’d killed her at the end. They’d killed their daughter.

It still turned out all right; part of her could see that, even though most of her went back to the beginning again to try and make it further along. All right, but not lovely, not brilliant, not shining like every one of them deserved.

Especially Serenity and End— no. Usagi. Especially Usagi, and especially Mamoru, and the people they always grew into. The wonderful father he was, the wonderful husband, the wonderful king. The caring friend, the careful and conscientious eternal student, the caregiver and healer, the kind and warm intellectual, the logical dreamer…

And he’d cried for her.

He cries for her every time, silent devastation or great wracking sobs, clinging to her body or to his wife or to his daughter, or curled in on himself, tight and restrained and hurting like the Earth hurts, the ground shaking instead of his hands. Sometimes there’s no time, and neither of them understands, but there’s that break behind his eyes, and Serenity’s not there because she’s not been saved yet, and the young Usagi and Mamoru watch while Wicked Lady holds her, and watch while the King thinks he’s lost everyone who truly loved him—

He thinks this terrible thing, even when he doesn’t remember the one iteration in which he actually said she was one of those people out loud.

Setsuna’s tea’d gotten cold; she’d been staring into it for the past ten minutes of subjective time, even if objective time didn’t exist beyond the Time Gate. The faintest of wry smiles graced her elegant mouth and she straightened up. So much for keeping her mind off him, off the thing she wished he hadn’t said. The thing part of her always wishes he’d say again.

Just as the Pretty Soldier of Time and Space drew herself up, tea forgotten in the ether, the great Door creaked open and a pink head peered around the corner, eyes wide.

Sailor Pluto smiled with endless, infinite affection and reached out a hand: sometimes she doesn’t even care whether or not he said it once.

“Hello, Small Lady, my Princess. It’s good to meet you.”


End file.
